Retro Diary – 16/9/12 – "Great shot, CPU! Oh, CPU, you idiot!"

Monday 10th September 2012

I was a G-Force after college today (No surprises there.), and I bought 3 Sega Saturn games, Sega Worldwide Soccer 97 and 98, and Virtua Fighter (1).

I saw a model 1 Mega Drive with a Mega CD attachment, it had no price tag, so I asked at the counter how much it was, and she said if it works (they had yet to test it), they said it might be £60 for both, which sounds really good. I liked it up on ebay, and to buy model 1 Mega CDs on their own on eBay costs £240! I’m getting that Mega CD out of G-Force as soon as I can! I know the guys won’t be interested in getting it before me, I trust you guys, but you’re wanting it, I’m not overly fussed, the race will be on!

I came home to be greeted by 2 parcels! One that looked like one that a strategy guide book would go in, and the other was actually pretty big, but it had Japanese writing on it, so I knew exactly what that was!

The guide was the Sleeping Dogs strategy guide that I ordered alongside the game, I only do that to games I really want.

The game was Digimon Tamers Battle Spirit 1.5 for the Wonderswan Colour, the box was actually taller than a Black & White Wonderswan game, it was actually the size I initially expected them to be, the rest of the box was just paper and bubble wrap, it seems the Japanese aren’t big fans of the environment.

I’ve played Battle Spirit, and it’s brilliant, even better than I hoped! Visually, it looks amazing, just like a GBA game!

Tuesday 11th September 2012

It’s worth mention first, R.I.P. to those who died in 9/11, it’s been 12 long years.

Remember when I said I saw a Model 1 Mega Drive+CD there and said it might be £60 once they’re ready to sell it? Well, I went back there today, and they had it for sale for £100, but it came with 2 6-button controllers and 3 games, technically 4! I was a bit sceptical at first, but they mentioned that they do a 3-month guarantee, which isn’t too much, but with an old console, you’d be lucky to have a guarantee on it at all, it also means if it breaks within those 3 months, you can take it back and get a refund, which sounds alright. They also mentioned that chances are, it’ll go in a couple of days, they rarely come by, hard and expensive to find on eBay, and it’s on high demand.

Believe it or not, £100 is a good price for a Mega CD, To buy one on it’s own, without the Mega Drive itself, any games, or controllers, would cost you a whopping £240! and that’s not including delivery! £100 doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?

So I decided to get it, if it doesn’t work, I could just take it back, so I might as well give it a try.

As I bought it, they were explaining to me some things I would need to know about the Mega CD, like that it uses it’s own power, that the reset button opens the tray and start closes it. I knew all of this, but it was awesome that this shop hires people who know what they’re talking about. Unlike a certain other store…

The console works perfectly, although the display is a little off, but it turns out it was the Mega Drive itself with that problem, because I get the same display quality when playing a cartridge game, which of course doesn’t require or involve the Mega CD.

The games I have for it at the moment aren’t that great, except for one, I got Prince of Persia, Jaguar XJ220, Cobra Command (Which, sadly, sucks! ='(), and Sol-Feace, which is actually pretty fun.

Now that I own a Mega CD, that opens doors for me to try out those really bad FMV games, like Night-Trap! I can only get Sonic CD, with the proper music the EU/JP version had, as opposed to the US one Gems Collection had.

I downloaded and tried out the FIFA 13 demo for the PC, I downloaded it from Origin, because, where else? The game’s just as fun as FIFA 12, maybe slightly better.

Wednesday 12th September 2012

I got Space Invaders for the PC today out of CEX, expecting it to be just like the PS1 version, only supporting bigger resolutions, sharper graphics and a much higher framerate, well, only 1 of the 4 are right…

Transformers for the PS2 arrived today, and it’s just as good as it was when I first played it years ago!

Friday 14th September 2012

Black Mesa is finally out!

I’ve been looking forward to it for years, and I’m not disappointed, it’s a great game!

Sunday 16th September 2012

It was a Mystery Console this week, I didn’t reveal it until my cousins had finished their lunch and came in, it was the Sega Dreamcast, to make up for thee fact we didn’t really play it last week.

Steven brought back my copy of Stranglehold that I let him steal, after he completed it.

Me and Steven started things off by playing Chu Chu Rocket!

Then we had a few games of Metropolis Street Racer, Steven and Giancarlo had a game as well. I changed my name from “CobrbDB”, which I probably put it there for a joke, the misspelling came from Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii, to “Cobra!”. Steven changed his nickname from “Steven” to “CobrbDB”, which is practically his new nickname, and we changed Giancarlo’s name to “Ya555555555”, which is mostly what he uses these days.

Then me and Giancarlo played Virtua Fighter 3TB.

Then me and Steven had a game of Virtua Tennis.

Then we played Virtua Tennis 2, Giancarlo joined in after us realising you can have 3 players, the game was just pure madness! I think we have found our new favourite multiplayer game, at least on the Dreamcast!

Then me and Steven had a game of Horse on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, we played on the Skatestreet level, the “horse” was “RJIBYAHHBZ”, Steven lost, with me having “RJIBY”, 15-5 to me!

Then we played Le Mans 24 Hours.

Then we played Sonic Adventure 2, our- well, my favourite! We had a race on the Go-Karting, which he won out of us 2. We had a couple of shooting battles, We both won 1, then we had a 2 races, again, we both had a win.

Then we played Ready 2 Rumble, our reality that live and Australia, and they were watching us play this, he loves to watch boxing, we had 2 game, I think we both won 1 game each.

At this point, we were aiming to have played all of the game we had, we almost done it before, but this time we had much more time, we it was possible.

Then we had a game of WWF Attitude.

Then we had a race of Sega Rally. Which I lost!

Then we played Sega GT.

Then we played Mortal Kombat Gold.

Then we played Re-Volt, we had a race, which he won, somehow…

Then we played NBA Showtime, we had no choice to play as a team, and we lost by 10 or so points…

Then we had a game of WWF Royal Rumble.

That was us played all of the games, so we celebrated by playing some more Virtua Tennis 2! We played doubles, both of us on separate teams, but most points were by either the CPU being good, or them making a stupid mistake!

It turned out that we missed a few games, we played some UFC, the graphics were fantastic for a Dreamcast game, it looked stunning, but the gameplay kind of sucked.

Then we played another horse game on Tony Hawk’s Skateboarding, this time, the “horse” was “GLQTEZWZY”, for some reason, we could change it this time, last time, we had to stick with “horse”. Steven got GLQTEZWZY, but I ended up getting a G, was this the glimmer of hope Steven needed? Nope, He got a Y right afterwards, I win, 16-5!

Finally, we had a game of ECW Hardcore Revolution, which I won.

That was certainly an active week, next week is PS2 week, WWE All Stars time!